


Solitary Stark Envy

by UnderwhelmingAlchemist



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Child Neglect, Feels, I'm so sorry, Song fic, Sort of song fic, Suicide Attempt, a shit ton a feels, howard stark is a shit father, jarvis is basically tony's dad, little baby tony, seriously, someone please just wrap him up in a blanket and give him hot coco, worthlessness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-02
Updated: 2016-03-02
Packaged: 2018-05-24 07:08:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6145655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UnderwhelmingAlchemist/pseuds/UnderwhelmingAlchemist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Based off of the song "Solitary Hide-and-Seek Envy", or, alternatively, Hitorinbo Envy. Original here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNhOoMRfbzk, and the English dub here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJ6-K3uxUEg<br/>This is a rather short fic. Tony feels unwanted in his family, like he never quite belonged. He grows more and more suicidal, not realising that Jarvis and Anna are right there, and that he really does have a place in the world.</p><p>Beta'd by the amazing Awesomewunderbar and Steph!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Solitary Stark Envy

Tony Stark had always known he was an unwanted child. A happy accident, his mother called him, her perfume dancing in the air. A god damn brainless little shit, his father called him, alcohol heavy on his breath. Jarvis called him a reckless little demon with too much of his father in him, but with a smile, intending it as a compliment.  
Howard was always working, or drinking, or both. His mother was a broken woman, explaining in a soft voice that Howard did care, and was just terrible at showing it, her voice always trembling as if she never truly believed her own words. She would wipe tears from her eyes and force a smile, but never fooled the small boy questioning her from the corner.

Jarvis had always cared, though. Always been the one to gently scold him for getting messy while ever so gently wiping dirt from his face, the one to lift the covers and allow the small boy to crawl into his bed between him and his wife when the gaping closet doors frightened him.  
But Tony was young, and Jarvis was more of a constant ghost, someone who was there, but not there. He never truly realized that the man cared so much about him. All he wanted was for his mother to be the one to sing him to sleep, for his father to tell him that he was proud of him. But that day never came, and he found himself realizing that it never would.

He was eight when Anna made him the dolls as a birthday present. They’d been simple, one with a beautiful dress and long brown hair, and the other in a suit with Howard’s moustache and hair. She’d told them that they were so he’d never be lonely.

It worked. Tony brought the dolls with him everywhere, always hiding them from his father in fear of retribution for owning such meaningless, hollow items that someone else had made for him. Starks didn’t take handouts, he’d been told. They make their own way in the world.

Those dolls became his constant companions. He would imagine that they really were his parents, playing endless games of hide and seek with them, pushing them on swings. Even when he grew older, much too old for dolls, he found himself continuing to do so. After all, it was nice to pretend that he was a normal child with a happy family for just a little while.

Other children would visit the playground that he frequented with the dolls from time to time. Whenever this happened, he would hide the dolls away and just watch the giggling children with their ever smiling parents. How ignorant they were, how unaware of anything outside of their blissful existence. They never even spared him a second glance.

Meanwhile, Jarvis and Anna were growing more and more concerned about Tony’s prolonged absences from the house, but when they voiced their concerns, they fell on deaf ears. After all, it was healthy for Tony to be developing his own sense of independence. What did it matter if ever now and again he fell asleep on the playground carousal, clutching those hand-sewn dolls?

The more and more Tony played with the dolls, drawing colourful crayon depictions of his family as they should be, all happy and smiling, all of them together, the more he realized how different reality was from this fantasy.

He was unwanted, he knew that. Unwanted, unneeded, just a plague on his family. They didn’t care about him, if he lived or died. He was a ghost, haunting what was once his home, but now simply a rapidly fading memory.

He was only twelve when he tried to kill himself.

Early in the morning, he woke up, packing a bag with snacks and enough money for all the necessary bus tickets. The dolls he carried in his arms.

There was one picture of him with his mother and father as a family that wasn’t taken by the press. Just one. They were all standing on the beach, holding the little toddler Tony in their arms while ankle-deep in the ocean. They were smiling and laughing, grinning at the camera. Up until that day, Tony had kept it in an upside down picture frame on his dresser. He grabbed this as well, shoved it into his back pocket, and silently ran from the house.

Nobody on the bus paid him any mind, asked where the boy was going alone so early in the morning. Why would they? They all had their own destinations, and they were all of the utmost importance. Why worry about the small boy when they had an urgent business meeting across town, and dammit, if they were late, they may not get that raise?

The beach was far away, and by the time he stepped off the final bus, the sun was beginning to set. It was truly beautiful, Tony thought with a little smile. And it was the last thing he’d ever see. How perfect.

He grinned and waved to the driver as he jumped off the bus. He felt lightheaded, giddy. Happy. It was all going to end in just a few moments, so why worry about anything at all?

His old tennis shoes filled with sand as he ran down to the edge of the water, so he yanked them off, and then did the same to his socks. He didn’t bother taking them with him; he just dropped them wherever he felt like.

When he finally reached the edge of the water, he pulled the photograph from his pocket, smiling down at the family that never truly existed outside of PR opportunities, then at the dolls with their button eyes and sewn on smiles.

He whispered a goodbye none of them would ever here and set the dolls on the ground beside each other, the photograph placed carefully on their laps. When he looked up, he could almost see the figures of Howard and Maria, smiling and laughing with their arms outstretched, as if they were waiting to hug him tightly. All he had to do was walk forward.

One foot in front of the other, he headed forward, the water lapping at his ankles, then soaking the hems of his jeans. He walked further, deeper, and a wave sent the water surging up to his knees.

Tony shivered and bit his lower lip, glancing back at the dolls on the shore, then over at the ghosts of his laughing parents. With a new determination, he continued walking forward, his entire body trembling.

The water rose higher and higher, and he could feel hot tears rolling down his cheeks, but he was smiling. He couldn’t stop crying, nor could he stop trembling, but everything inside him was peaceful, still. He was going to die, and then, maybe, he really would be able to have that family that he pictured in his mind.

“I’m coming, guys… I’m co-”

His sentence dissolved into indecipherable burbling when the next wave sent the water over his head, and he found himself losing his footing, falling back into the water. He gasped instinctively, and water filled his lungs, and he coughed, struggled, panicking. He wasn’t breathing in air, and his lungs were screaming at his body to fight, that this wasn't right, that he was dying. But his mind kicked in, reassuring him that this was what he wanted. It soothed his fright with images of playing hide and seek with his mother and father, playing tag and quickly being swept up into their arms.

Slowly, he stopped fighting. He just closed his eyes, a soft smile on his lips as he allowed the ocean to have its way with him. Salt water filled his lungs, and the currents threw his body about like a careless child playing with a rag doll. Slowly, everything faded to black…

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tony never expected to wake up, and yet, he did.

At first, it was a soft beeping that faded into his dreams. He’d been lying in his bed, listening to voices speak, although he couldn’t understand them. He wondered if it were perhaps the afterlife. Well, if it was, he was disappointed. It seemed awfully boring.

The beeping grew louder and louder and Tony began to grow aware of a sharp pain in his arm and wrist. As he did, the voices became clearer, and he recognized them as belonging to Jarvis and Anna.

"He’ll be okay, love. I know he will be. He’s a strong boy,” Anna was cooing, although her voice was shaky and unsure.

“I should have known something was wrong. Master Stark may not have listened to me, but I should have done something on my own. I should have stopped this…”

No. No, that wasn’t right. It wasn’t Jarvis’s fault! He had to tell him…

Slowly, Tony fought back the heavy sleep and opened his brown eyes, staring up at the butler and his wife hovering over his hospital bed. There was an IV in his arm, and the whole room had the scent of a dying man’s room. Harsh rubbing alcohol, cleaning supplies, and some kind of pathetic air-freshener. Still, he managed to force a smile and greet Jarvis in his usual way.

“Hey, J… Did I miss something?”

“Oh my god… Oh my god…”

Seconds after speaking, Tony found himself being held tightly in the arms of Jarvis and his wife, their worried voices calling him stupid, talking about how much he meant to them, and what was he thinking, walking into the ocean like that, he was lucky a man with a metal detector just happened to stumble upon him and pull him from the water, why would he put them through that, didn’t they know they cared about him like their own son?

Tony’s eyes were opened wide as he listened to them, and he didn’t make a move to return the tight hug. Honestly, he’d never thought about Jarvis and Anna as anything but servants who went out of their way to care for Tony simply because it was their job. He’d never considered that maybe, just maybe, they actually cared about him.

His gaze drifted over to the doorway, and he noticed the two dolls, still drying, propped up against the wall. He could see himself holding them, smiling softly at himself, and then vanishing, leaving only the soulless, plush versions of his mother and father behind.

Slowly, Tony looked back to the crying, worried faces of Jarvis and Anna, then at the dolls, then back at them again. They weren't his parents… But they’d always acted like it, hadn't they? Anna was always making him toys, mending the holes in his jeans before his father could notice, sharing conspiratorial jokes or randomly poking his sides to make him giggle. And Jarvis had always been there, watching over him, picking him up from school, running after him and calling out his name when he took off through the gardens, grinning to himself. In a way, weren't they more his family than his actual parents?

After a long moment, Tony wrapped his arms around Jarvis and Anna, burying his face in their shoulders and whispering a soft ‘I’m sorry’.

Tears fell from Tony Stark’s eyes, and Jarvis and Anna cried right alongside him.


End file.
